Continuity reigns at First Hope Bank

Hope - Daniel G. Beatty joins his father and older brother at the First Hope Bank, a financial institution founded by his great-grandfather, Lewis C. Beatty Sr. and now led by his father, Norman E. Beatty. Lewis R. Beatty is cahier and chief financial officer. Lewis and Daniel’s mother, Agnes R. Beatty, is vice chair of the board of directors. To date, family members have served the back for a combined 154 years. This includes Noman’s mother, Lillian, who worked in the loan and audit departments until her death April 13, 2000, at 93 years old. Norman Beatty is president, chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Keeping with family tradition, Daniel Beatty is starting on the teller line, just as his father and grandfather did. Norman Beatty explained: “Like most commercial activities, banking is primarily the ability to understand needs from the perspective of an institution’s customer.This understanding is not gained in academia, but in working with customers and fellow colleagues, in listening and serving the needs of an individual who wishes to do business with the bank. There is no better place than at the tip of the spear-- those touch points in which bank associates come in direct contact with customers at the Teller line, on the telephone in the Contact Center, at the Investment Services desk or through the loan application process.” Lewis R. Beatty, began his career at the bank in 1999 as a loan clerk. Daniel joins the executive team: Donald D. Somma, senior executive vice president for retail operations/senior lender; Susan M. Porter, senior vice president/chief administrative officer; Edward F. Walker, Jr., senior vice president for investment and trust services/senior trust officer and Cindy Munley, vice president for marketing and his brother, Lewis. Daniel, a 1999 graduate of West Point, served six years in the U.S. Army on active duty as an officer in the Armor Branch. His military career began as a tank platoon leader with a deployment to Kuwait in support of Operation Desert Spring. He also served as a company executive officer, headquarters troop commander and battalion personnel officer, III Corps protocol officer, and during his final year on active duty as the Multi-National Corps Iraq assistant secretary of the General Staff in Baghdad. Upon return from Iraq, Dan left active duty and joined his wife, Michelle, in Lexington, Va, for her final two years of law school. During that time, Dan was the production controller for the Target Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center. Dan and Michelle recently moved to Fredon following Michelle’s graduation, magna cum laude, from Washington and Lee School of Law this past May. She will begin her law career in September as an associate with Morris, Downing & Sherred of Newton. Despite a marketplace filled with mergers and acquisitions, First Hope, established in 1911, pledges to remain independently operated, priding itself on successfully combining its “hometown” customer orientation with the progressive services of larger institutions. Branches are in Andover, Blairstown, Great Meadows, Hackettstown and Sparta, with the main office remaining in an 18th century Moravian church building in Hope.